(Rivals.com)Offensive tackle Shon Coleman made a verbal commitment to Auburn but visited Alabama and Mississippi before signing with the Tigers.

After carefully considering all my options, I'm ready to publicly announce that this column will be about Auburn football recruiting.

I might still decide to write about Alabama recruiting instead, but publicly I'm committed to write about Auburn. This, I think, is what the kids call a "soft commitment."

If you think making a commitment means you're obligating yourself to do something, then you're out of touch with the dance of words and actions that now go into finding a college football home for the best high school football prospects.

The "I'm committed to Auburn, but I'm still going to visit Alabama and Miami to make sure I don't like them better" routine has become a common practice for the prospects who have their choice of scholarship offers. It's enough to make a person wonder if these kids are getting any direction from home about the importance of living up to their word.

But there is another possibility. While some of these kids are simply finding a way to bask in the spotlight a little longer, perhaps some have just learned at an early age that their responsibility in this process is to look out for themselves.

But the next time you're tempted to criticize a teenager for making an early public commitment before he's 100 percent settled on where to go to college, consider the case of Jake Nicolopulos.

As a junior at T.L. Hannah High School in Anderson, S.C., he was offered a scholarship to Clemson. He accepted almost immediately and was set to sign with the Tigers last month. But in December he suffered a stroke and couldn't talk, walk or write after major surgery to relieve pressure on his brain.

Nicolopulos is not expected to play football again. But earlier this month, he signed a non-athletic scholarship with Clemson that will pay for his full education at a quality university.

"When I saw that fax come through, it brought a smile to my face," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney told The State newspaper of Columbia. "He will be a part of this family."

Swinney is one of the genuinely good guys in college athletics. I can't think of a single college coach I would want coaching my son or teaching him life lessons more than Swinney. But there is more at play here than a nice coach doing a good deed.

T.L. Hannah, which is only about 20 minutes from the Clemson campus, is one of the best football programs in the state. It would be a public relations disaster to pull a scholarship from a disabled player. In reality, the education of Nicolopulos was taken care of the day he publicly committed to Clemson.

It would be nice to assume that every recruit who suffers a stroke or a serious knee injury would still be granted a scholarship by some compassionate coach or athletic director, but it's simply not true.Nicolopulos became part of the "family" and had his education taken care of only after making a public commitment to the Tigers.

Honoring a commitment is definitely one of the most important lessons a young person needs to know, right behind the value of securing an education.